Showers of Blessing

This time of year I normally don't have much to say about meteor shower watching. We usually talk about the Perseid shower in August and justifiably so. It is a strong, regular shower with many bright meteors with long trails. However, there is also a good, reliable one in December. Most often it peaks during my school's first semester exam week, so I tend to not mention it. Well this year the peak was on the weekend, Saturday, December 13 to be exact. I informed all my classes about the shower. Most showers have an extended period (7 to 10 days) when meteors associated with it can be seen in the night sky. Somewhere in the middle of that span is a maximum. That is usually the best time to go out and look for meteors. Unfortunately, the best time to view most meteor showers is between midnight and dawn. The Geminid shower in December is an exception. You can see quite a few meteors before midnight since the radiant is so high above the horizon. This shower also favors the northern hemisphere.

All these factors came together to make this years Geminid meteor shower the most viewed meteor shower by my students since the Leonid showers of 1999, 2000 and 2001. I was out looking for one hour and saw 30, most of faint to average brightness. There were a couple brighter ones with nice long trails. It was a bit nippy for us Floridians, but I bundled up and found a reasonably dark place to view from. The time flew by. It felt great to see so many meteors. Not everyone gets excited about seeing a few streaks of light going across the sky, but you will never know until you try it. Most meteors from showers come from debris off comets (usually) or asteroids (uncommon). The sight of one of these sand-grain sized cometary detritus entering our atmosphere at speeds up to 70,000 milers per hour can startle and amaze you. Please plan on trying with friends and/or family this next year. This site has a list of the major showers and their dates for 2015: http://www.amsmeteors.org/meteor-showers/meteor-shower-calendar/

On another note, today, Monday, December 15, 2014 is a minor marker in my countdown to retirement. As of tonight I have 99 school days left in my teaching career, double digits. The countdown on this blog site includes weekends and holidays so it will be a while until it says 99. But school days are what count, right?

We start Christmas vacation (officially Winter Break) next week. I am undecided if I will post anything over the break. I'll see how the spirit moves. In any event I wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and whatever other holiday you celebrate.

Random Things about Me

After all, this blog is all about me, right?

1. I was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, but my early years were spent in nearby Clark's Summit.

2. I am the youngest of 4 boys.

3. My earliest memory is my amateur photographer father posing me on the top of a step ladder to take my picture. Records show I was 2. My mother was not very happy.

4. I spent part of every summer at a camp my father ran, Heart Lake Bible Conference in Jermyn, PA.

6. The lake at Heart Lake had its fair share of leeches.

7. My Dad was a pastor and printed the bulletins at home using a mimeograph. My brothers folded them as we drove to church Sunday morning. (I somehow couldn't get the hang of folding and creasing them properly.)

8. I was on TV at 6 years old as part of a 'Cherub Choir.' (Think about what TV was like in 1953.)

9. The first movie I ever saw was "Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier."

10. A month after I turned 7 my family moved to Manhattan, NYC.

11. I attended PS 135, at that time the nearest school to the United Nations Building.

12. The church my Dad pastored there had an apartment building built around it. From the street you could not tell it was a church.

13. The church had a pipe organ and to this day, I love music played on one.

14. In July my Sunday School had a full day picnic at Heckscher State Park on Long Island. We swam in 65 degree water and thought it was warm.

15. At the corner market I once saw Marilyn Monroe.

16. When I was 10, my mother and I rode the train (The Empire State Express) from New York to Miami to see my grandparents. It was a 24 hour ride. I thought it was a great experience. My mom was just tired.

 17. I have always loved Math and Science, physical science especially.

18. My all time favorite attraction to visit is the Museum of Natural History and the Hayden Planetarium.

19. I grew up during the space race, a very exciting and terrifying time. When John Glenn orbited the earth, our class listened to it on the radio. There was no TV in the classroom.

20. When John Glenn came to NYC, a month or so later, for a ticker tape parade down Broadway, 2 buddies and I skipped school to go see him. I have never regretted the decision.

21. I attended Stuyvesant High School 9th and 10th grades. My Dad died during my sophomore year and my mother and I moved to Norfolk, Virginia.

22. While in college I hitchhiked over 10,000 miles.

23. I double majored in Math and Physics.

24. In college I had jobs in the dining room kitchen and the audio visual department (for those who remember such a thing.)

25. I learned to play guitar in college. Acoustic. I was (and am) a fan of folk music.

26. The definition of culture shock: going from life on the East Coast to rural Indiana for college.

27. From the window of my third floor dorm room, I once saw a tornado touch down. Scary.

28. I was the manager of the wrestling team and statistician for track.

29. I did not get my drivers license until I was 19.

30. The first car I owned was a 1968 Pontiac LeMans with 350 V-8. It got 12-13 MPG.

31. One of my favorite meals as a kid (and still is today) is fried calves liver and onions.

32. As a kid I loved PB and marshmallow fluff sandwiches ( I had one last week.)

33. My first year of teaching I had to break up a fight in my classroom.

34. I saw the aurora borealis while teaching in Ohio. That's the only time I have seen the northern lights.

35. The summer after my first year of teaching I worked in a peach orchard picking peaches. By the end of each day, I itched terribly from the peach fuzz that worked its way down my shirt.

36. I have traveled in 47 of the 50 states and 6 Canadian provinces.

37. I have been to 15 national parks.

38. The darkest , most star-filled skies I have ever seen were at Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah, where I spent 5 weeks one summer leading stargazes for the public.

39. During the first 10 years of our marriage, my wife and I moved 9 times.

40. Last year my grand-daughter talked me into climbing a tree with her. I can't remember the last time I did that.

41. I love to read. The first author (in grade 6, 7 and 8) I went for in a big way was Walter Farley and his "The Black Stallion" series. I first read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings in the 1960s.

42. Thomas Cahill is another of my favorite authors. I especially like his Hinges of History series.

43. I read a lot of Isaac Asimov and C.S. Lewis when I was younger (still read Lewis).

44. Birding is another of my interests. I have seen over 500 species of birds.

45. A sixth generation great uncle, Captain John "Mad Jack" Percival, commanding the USS Constitution on its around the world trip in the 1840s.

46. I have made two stage appearances (at high schools where I taught), each time as a father. First, as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof and second as Petruchio in Taming of the Shrew.

47. Space shuttle launches were spectacular. My wife and I traveled to see at least 10 of them. Night time launches were particularly grand. Delta IV launches look pretty good, too.

48. I was in Times Square New Year's Eve to bring in 1961.

49. At age 65 I became a certified SCUBA diver.

50. I have traveled to see 5 total solar eclipses. Everybody needs to see at least one.

51. I like word games. All kinds.

52. I love the English language. Homophones, homonyms, word play, puns, you name it.

53. I enjoy fishing. I enjoy catching more.

54. Teaching Astronomy is wonderful.

I See Said the Blind Man

When I decided to start this blog there, the thought never entered my mind that I would be blogging about my health and personal issues. That was not the plan. It was to document my last year in the classroom. Well, when reality hits, you roll with the punches. Besides, this was a short week at school (just Monday and Tuesday. The rest was off for Thanksgiving.) So here's my title related story.

My wife and I camped at Oscar Scherer State Park in Osprey starting Sunday evening. I commuted to school the two days that we had and spent the nights at the camp site. On Thanksgiving Day we took a short bike ride. When we returned, I notice something in my right eye. I liken it to the after effects of looking at a bright light or glimpsing the sun. There is a glow in your eye that gradually fades away. Only this time it did not fade away.  As I looked around I saw some obstructions in my field of view, again right eye only. Overall it felt like a veil had fallen over the eye. When I closed my left eye, it looked like lots (thousands) of little dark dots arrayed in my field of view. The effect was that it was a little darker than the left eye. In addition there was sizable glob that reminded me of a spider with its legs attached to it. I could tell it was inside my eye because every time I move my eye to look right and then quickly shifted left, the glob moved with it.

It did not hurt. I felt no pain but. I waited a couple hours to see if it would improve or go away. It did not. (My wife was not pleased with this delay.) I mentioned it to my wife and she suggested I call an ophthalmologist friend of ours. I did and, after describing as I wrote above, he said to meet him at his office in a half hour. I did and the exam was thorough, mostly to rule out various possibilities. He dilated my eyes and used the brightest light I have ever seen aimed into my wide open pupil to see as much of the retina and the eyeball interior as he could. After completing his examination he said that the problem was the best case scenario. A blood vessel near, but not on, my optic nerve had burst and sprayed blood into the vitreous of my eye. He could see a little blood near a vessel by my optic nerve and the floaters in the vitreous. He said there was nothing he needed to or could do. The body would gradually absorb the blood and my vision would clear up. In most ways, my eye appeared in good health, for a man my age.

That was a relief. A big relief. No detached retina or other big issue to worry about. Now I am waiting for the blood to leave my eye. The spider and legs are still there as I write and they dance around as I look from side to side. I have found myself reacting to slight motions in my peripheral vision that are just chunks of blood moving as I glance sideways. It is a little irritating, but that I can handle, considering what might have happened.

Thanks for reading this.

Am I Really Thankful?

Thankful - feeling or showing gratitude.
Gratitude - a strong feeling of appreciation to someone for what that person has done for you.
Appreciation - the act of recognizing someone's worth as a person.

Last Friday my school administration showed a little gratitude toward the faculty and staff at my school. They hired a food truck called the Java Dawg to come to our campus for the morning just for us. As the name implies the heart of their business is specialty beverages. We each received a card good for the specialty drink of our choice. I got a mocha coffee. It was very good. A hot cocoa with caffeine is a reasonable description. At 8:00 AM it was a great choice. I had already had a cup of regular coffee, so this sweet one hit the spot. I would like to say thank you to the administrators for this expression of appreciation. While They did not have to do it, I am glad they did.

It did make me think a bit. When was the last time I deliberately showed gratitude to someone for what they had done or even for who they are? I decided to explore a little, so I looked up antonyms of thankful. I found the expected words like: hatred, distain, and dislike but was a little surprised to see apathy and indifference. After pondering this, briefly, I think I see the point. I would like to be able to say that I don't hate anybody. That I don't even dislike anyone that I know. Not that I am best buddies with all my colleagues, but I respect them as people and educators. And I am not best buddies with my students, but I like to think I respect them for the people they are and for the work they do in my class. The problem comes with that word apathy. We get so busy with our jobs and lives that we just don't take the time or make the effort to let people know that we appreciate them. It is not easy to do and can come across as self serving or insincere.

If there is any week in the calendar when we should be willing to express gratitude, this is it. And it doesn't even have to be for any thing in particular. Blanket thank yous are usually ineffective simply because they are not individualized. Thanks is best expressed one on one. That being said, since I have had several thousand students over the years, a blanket expression must suffice. To all those students who took a class from me, thank you. Without you I would not have had a job, a career, or an opportunity to impact others. Thank you to the parents who entrusted their children to me. And thank you to the administrators who took a chance and hired me.

Thank you for reading this post. I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving

Cleaning House

A rule of life for almost everyone is the longer you stay in one location, the more 'stuff' you accumulate. While it is not universal, in our culture it holds true often enough that we have adopted such notions as spring cleaning to help combat this collecting of material goods, what some people refer to as 'clutter.' This is also true for teachers. In the past 10 years I have taught Honors Physics, AP Physics B, AP Computer Science, Introduction to Programming, Robotics and Astronomy. In early years at my current school, I also taught sections of Computer Explorations to 5th and 6th grades. I have accumulated a fair amount of educational materials along the way. "You never know when that might come in handy" is a common refrain to give ones self the permission to collect (hoard?) stuff. "If I had to buy this stuff, it would cost an arm and a leg" is another line of rationale to hang on to something.

I certainly still have stuff, but I must say that the collection has been significantly reduced. This is because I moved to a different classroom last summer. It is clear that changing rooms is definitely on my least favorite things to do list, but it did force me to confront the file cabinets and boxes of stuff that I had and decide if I would likely need it in my final year in the classroom meaning it would have to be moved and I would have to find a place for it in my new digs. At the end of last school year I spent hours sifting through the detritus of my years as a teacher and ended up pitching a lot of stuff or passing it on to other teachers who said they could use it.

This week I did a little bit more, cleaning out some old files and paper work. I am surprised at how empty my file cabinets now are. I still have all my astronomy stuff, since that is most of what I teach. Telescopes, tripods, globes, charts, books, accessories, and all my Starlab equipment (our portable planetarium) take up a significant amount of storage in my class. But I feel very good knowing I have gotten a good chunk of the process out of the way.

The one category of items that I still have is educational toys. They are going to be the subject of several future posts. For now I will only say that at some point in my teaching career, I became aware that there is a good amount of physics in certain toys.

One final word. I have tried to not think too much about this. However, on Friday, I calculated the number of schools left until R-day as 117. The school year is more than one-third over. To paraphrase the Latin I learned, Tempus fidgets.

Mis-adventures with a Mouse

For this blog I am not inclined to talk about my life outside of school, but this post will be an exception.

On Monday, I was preparing for bed. My wife was still in the living room. As I sat on the edge of the bed about to crawl in, a loud voice reverberated down the hallway, "CHAP! COME HERE! CHAP! COME HERE!" As I responded to the insistent cry, I asked what was wrong. My wife said she saw something, an animal of some kind, run across the wide opening that leads to a room that she can see from the couch she was sitting on. She was seriously alarmed, since she couldn't rule out a mouse. For the next half hour, armed with yard sticks and brooms, we banged, poked, and prodded furniture. The unknown creature finally revealed himself to me in an attempt to escape our incessant poking. A large mouse dashed from location to location, each effort resulting in my wife convulsing and creatively dancing to avoid any chance of contact with said mouse. We tried to direct the mouse to allow us to corner, capture or force it to run out the opened exterior door. He refused our efforts and ended up running under the refrigerator, refusing to come out. Drat!

Not wanting to be left alone in the house with a mouse, my wife went to a 24 hour store and got several mouse traps. We baited (with peanut butter), armed and arrayed them in the kitchen and, with misgivings, went to bed. About 3:30 AM we awoke to a loud snap. Cautiously, I entered the kitchen and saw one trap closed but empty. No mouse. I went back to bed and we heard no more noises that night. A little depressing, the thought that this mouse was able to escape with the bait.

The next day, Tuesday, while weighing options, I thought that the traps were insufficient for the size of the mouse sought. My son-in-law, in the pest control business, had a couple of rat traps that I borrowed, baited and set. However, that night was quiet. No sound. No Mouse. But he was still around, leaving little calling cards. Wednesday, while I was at school, my wife bought two more rat traps. We baited and set them, one in a hallway, the other in the living room. A little after midnight a loud snap interrupted our sleep. The trap in the hallway was sprung. BUT NO MOUSE! This was becoming very disturbing. What kind of mouse is clever/quick enough to avoid a trap twice! We reached a new level of discouragement. Were we destined to live with this new, un-welcomed house guest for weeks, months, even years? Our sleep pattern was being interrupted and I am not a pleasant person when I lack sufficient sleep.

Thursday night we put fresh bait in the 4 traps and relocated them. My son-in-law suggested that we put a shoe box over a trap, either propped up or with a hole cut in it. Mice are curious and can easily smell the bait. It is something different. We went to bed and this time put a rug in the door sill, to reduce the chance that the mouse could enter our inner sanctum bedroom. We slept through the night and heard no sharp sounds. Waking at 6:00 to prepare for school, I checked the traps. The first three were empty. I forgot about the fourth until nearly ready to leave for work. I saw a dust bunny near a bookcase and realized that the mouse had probably dragged it out from under it. The fourth trap was straight ahead and in it I saw a most reassuring sight; a still mouse in a sprung trap. What release, what pleasure, not that the mouse was dead, but that he would not be terrorizing my wife any more. After waking my wife and sharing the good tidings, I took the trap outside and disposed of its contents. Off to school I went in a welcomed wonderful frame of mind.

Trust me when I say that Friday night was the best night's sleep of the week. This was the first time in 45 years of marriage that we have had a mouse in the house. Lizards? Sure. Ants? Oh yeah. Mice? Never. I guess we were due. Here's to another 45 years before the next one.

On the Mend

Last post I noted a less than stellar week, health-wise. Well, I was not recovering quickly enough, so I went to see my doctor Monday afternoon. He said I had 2 issues: a virus in my mouth creating little openings in the skin for the normal bacteria ever present there to enter the blood stream and produce a temperature. I am now on an antibiotic and much improved.

Fall has arrived with the overnight low in the 50s. Tonight it may dip into the 40s. Since this is Florida, that is significant. I enjoy wearing long sleeve shirts without sweating up a storm.

So let's see, this week was Halloween. At my school the primary way we recognize that day is the second and third grades get costumed up according to a theme and they parade around campus first thing in the morning. The second grade dressed up by decades (the 20s, 30s, 40s, etc.) and the third grade dressed up as weird words/homophones/homonyms. Hey, this is a school for the gifted. It fits. Many of the students and teachers in the other grades also wear costumes. And since Halloween was Friday this year, an additional festive feeling was in the air. In addition, the Speech and Debate team was gone to a competition so several of my students were gone.

Now about Astronomy. In my class the students learn the constellations 2 or 3 per week until they know all 66 that you can see from our latitude. In recent weeks they have learned Piscis Austrinus, Capricorn, Cygnus, Vulpecula, Cepheus and Ursa Minor. If you took Astronomy from me, maybe they ring a bell. It is especially nice to see the students respond when we have a stargaze and they actually get to see these in the real sky. That is the one thing that makes my Astronomy class different from 99% of the other classes in America.

We also participated in the Great World Wide Star Count, an activity in which students estimate the limiting magnitude of the sky at their home location. We did it as a class at a star gaze at school and found that straight up we could see 5th magnitude stars. Closer to the horizon, light pollution from Sarasota and Venice reduced the number of stars we could see, which is the point of the exercise, to bring awareness to people of the effect of light pollution on our view of the heavens. I have been in locations where there were no lights within 38 miles and the skies were truly full of stars. The majority of people never get to see that and so have little or no appreciation of how beautiful the night sky is. If you ever get a chance to see a clear dark sky (say at a national park) please do so.

I'll step down from my soap box now.

Did I say that it is November already? To paraphrase a famous Latin dictum; tempus fidgets.
Thanks for reading this.

My Worst Week in Years

I try to go through life looking on the bright side of things. But this week has really put that to the test. Last Sunday late afternoon, I started to feel a little odd so I took my temperature. It was 100.3. I had no other symptoms but just having the fever meant no school for me. Sounds great except I had to notify the school and get lessons together for my sub. Asleep that night I had a huge bout of sweats and my fever broke. Monday morning, no fever. 2 PM no fever, 7 PM fever is back. No school Tuesday. Notify the school and make more plans. I hate to make lesson plans for subs. (Later I found out the district had it's own issues on Tuesday, so it wasn't a total loss.) I go to school Wednesday but feel a little weak. Come home and sleep a lot, but no fever. Starlab is Thursday so I go in, although, since my voice is not real strong, I play a lot of music in Starlab. I like it and the kids seem to like it. Almost through the day on Thursday, I feel my mouth starting to feel funny and check it to see several canker sores inside on my tongue and side of the mouth. As I drive home I feel a bump on my lip rising, a cold sore. My wife and I had arranged a long time ago to visit a college campus this weekend and I had appointments I needed to keep, so we packed up and traveled to Daytona Beach. During this whole episode, let me say that Orajel was my friend. My fever was gone but my mouth was a mess. I nursed it as best I could and the sores are starting to fade away but it is not back to normal. My appetite this week was awful, leaving me with this one bright spot: I lost 11 pounds, in one week. This is not how I wanted to lose weight.

I sincerely hope that those are the final sick days of my teaching career. Stay tuned.

A Fair Week

I love the English language. I enjoy the interplay between words of different origins, of homophones,

of double meanings, you name it. More about that later. But first, this. Once a year my school holds a fund raiser for clubs and organizations. It is called the Pine View Fair and this year it was Saturday, October 18. I went but not as a sponsor of any group. I just walked around, ate some food, talked to some parents and students and generally enjoyed the ambiance of this, my final (as a teacher, anyway) PV Fair. 

When I entered the Student Union, which served as a food court for the fair, I deliberately ate nothing at first but walked all around surveying the various offerings. I like to support the kids and I like to eat, so it seemed like a win win situation. I enjoyed chips and salsa,  a spring roll, a homemade chocolate chip cookie, a hamburger, 2 Indian donuts and a second homemade chocolate chip cookies, in that order. (I have a real weakness for those cookies.)

Now about those Indian donuts. Definitely a new experience for me.  The two I had were from different batches made by different people. There was apparently some sort of bragging right associated with these treats as several students tried to tell me which ones were superior. I ended up trying one each from two different batches. They were little balls of fried or baked dough, reminiscent of the shape of hush puppies, soaked in a sweet liquid. I could tell they were not from the same batch. The textures were different, if not much else. They were both tasty and I would probably, given the opportunity, eat them again. The spring roll was excellent. The hamburger was satisfactory. The chips and salsa (actually, salsa, sour cream, and guacamole) were nicely spiced. But the chocolate chip cookies were savored morsel by morsel. I could make myself sick eating home made CCCs.

Of course, the quality of the food was not the main concern. Instead, it was an encouragement to the students, who put a lot of work into this event. The weather this year was outstanding. We might have asked for better weather, but I am not sure how it could have been any better. There was a climbing wall, a dunk tank, skill tests of tossing and throwing objects, a robotics test driving arena, a science show, dichroic jewelry for sale by the art department, and much more. I have no idea of the numbers, but a lot of folks were there and I am sure a lot of money was raised. Success.

This week in astronomy we did one of my favorite activities. We started the chapter on telescopes so we examined lenses and mirrors. My room can get very dark with lights off and blinds drawn, since I have aluminum foil lining all the windows. I made my room a camera obscura and used a lens to project onto a piece of paper an image of the scene right outside our door. I love it because it always gets such a reaction from the students. It is difficult to appreciate without seeing this but, trust me, it is a memorable experience for my class. I keep telling my students that they are never going to forget this class. Maybe, if I keep telling them that, they will, in fact, remember some of it.

Back to English. When I joined facebook in 2008, one of my early posts was titled "Some of My Favorite Words 5 Syllables and Longer." I think my all time favorite is 'sesquipedalian,' which means the use of big words. English is so contrived that ghoti is a way to spell fish. That is gh as in rough, o as in women and ti as in motion. I may revisit this in a future post.

This was the last full week of the first quarter. The school year is 25% over. The time is going so fast. 

Well, thanks for reading this.

A Full Week

This was one full week. My school had a guest speaker. There was a total lunar eclipse. We had Starlab. And we had a taste of fall weather.

But first, this. A couple weeks ago a reporter from The Torch, my school's student newspaper, came and interviewed me about this blog. It had not crossed my mind, at all, that the school paper might think my blog was interesting or worthy of covering, so I was surprised and pleased. I attribute their interest to one of two things. Either it was a slow news day or, more likely, since the school has an online edition, there is more opportunity to write and publish articles, so they had space to fill. Either way, I think it was a nicely done story. Here is a link to it. Thank you.

Our school has guest speakers from time to time. Over the years the quality of the speakers coming to our school has been known to be a little uneven. This time, however, it was great. The speaker, Nadja Halilbegovich, had a terrific story. She grew up in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. After that country splintered apart, Sarajevo was besieged for 4 years. Now this was 20 or so years ago, before any of the students were born, but they were attentive and enthralled by her story. It is recounted in her book, My Childhood Under Fire: A Sarajevo Diary. If it is as good a read as it was a tell, it will hold your interest.

While the speaker was great, the eclipse was not. I woke up at 5:00 AM to come to school. As I left home, I saw the partially eclipse moon playing peek-a-boo through some holes in the clouds. By the time I arrived at school, the holes were fewer and by the time totality began, all the holes were gone and we did not see any of the total eclipse, only cloud bottoms. We heard it was great and a former student of mine posted some photos on facebook. Not very satisfying but better that nothing. And, while this was the second of a tetrad of lunar eclipses, meaning there are 2 left in the next 11 months, the next one is visible from the Pacific Ocean, not Sarasota. We have one more chance in this group of 4 eclipses, next September. That will be visible in all the Americas (except Alaska and northwestern North America.)

In the 25 years I have lived in Florida, my observation has been that the hot weather of summer usually lingers until the third week of October, plus or minus a week. This week we had 2 days of cooler, below average temperatures, as a front sneaked further south than usual and reached us; a harbinger of things to come. It wasn't much, but I'm not complaining.

We had Starlab this week. One of the things I enjoy about our little portable planetarium is its acoustics. I have a boom box that plays music I have acquired over the years that I think plays well in that venue. I like even more the fact that I get to pick the music that my students must listen too. Now I have eclectic taste in music, but there probably is not much overlap between my student's playlists and mine. Here is the music I played this week.

Becoming One of "The People" - Avatar sound track
Cello Suite No. 1, prelude - J.S. Bach
Adiemus - Karl Jenkins from the album Songs of Sanctuary
Here Comes the Sun - The Beatles

I am always looking for music that would fit well in the planetarium. Suggestions are welcome.

As of now the weather forecast for Sunday (10/12/14) evening is clear. I have scheduled a stargaze. If the weather holds, it should be great. I tend to effuse after a good stargaze. Stay tuned.

Alphabet Soup

I had another great week. If this is getting a bit old for you, sorry, but I cannot help it. The only down aspect of the week has been the continuing lousy weather. Lousy with respect to stargazing. We had one break Thursday night when the first quarter moon could be seen along with Antares and Mars. The Greek name for Mars,the red planet, is Ares. The red giant star, Antares, meaning rival of or against Ares, is near the ecliptic and every 2 years or so Mars (Ares) approaches Antares. This was that week, so we got to see the two red objects, one a star, the other a planet, within a few degrees of each other.

As I write this, the outlook for stargazing has improved immensely, at least with respect to the rain and clouds. The seasons first cold (cool) front has move through and we are seeing night time temperatures that we haven't seen since May. Now we have to wait a week for the waxing gibbous moon to get out of the evening sky. During that week we have a special event you should know about. On Wednesday, October 8, 2014 there is a total lunar eclipse visible (in the eastern USA) before sunrise. The partial eclipse starts around 5 AM and totality about 6:25, lasting until sunrise and hour later. Let's hope for clear skies.

On to the topic that is in the title of this post. I have determined that one thing I will not miss in my retirement years is the alphabet soup that is educational acronyms. These are abbreviations that are intended to be memorable and helpful, I think. In my career the use of these shorthand forms has proliferated in a Fibonacci-like magnitude. Here is a list of just some, a very few, of these devices that I have seen and used over the years. Perhaps they will bring back memories, fond or painful I know not which.

DOK - depth of knowledge, the newest one for me. I do not recall seeing this before this week. I may have and my memory has failed me, but it is what prompted this post.
AP - advanced placement. I teach AP Computer Science.
ADHD - attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
CBA - curriculum based assessment
GPA - grade point average
IDEA - individuals with disabilities act
IEP - individualized education plan
NCLB - no child left behind
OCD - obsessive compulsive disorder
PSAT - preliminary scholastic aptitude test
WISC - Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children
CRISS - creating independence through student-owned strategies
PVA - Pine View Association, our parent-teacher association
FIRST - for inspiration and recognition of science and technology, a robotics organization
STEM - science, technology, engineering, and math
STEAM - science, technology, engineering, arts, and math
FCAT - florida comprehensive assessment test

I have no ax to grind with regard to these. They are a part of an educators life. They can be helpful at times but mostly they just are. (I mean that just the way it is written.) I know that all professions and careers have them (the military is very well known for its array of acronyms,) so we get used to it. Does that mean we have to like them? No, especially when one is used that you don't know and you have to ask what it means. All I can say is that they are one part of the job that I will not miss.

Anyway, remember to look for the lunar eclipse Wednesday, October 8 before sunrise. Wishing you clear skies.

An Average Week - How Boring - NOT!

The sixth week of school just ended. All schedule changes have been made and the routine of school has settled in. Students know where to sit and what is expected of them when they come into class. The 12 weeks that follow Labor Day are the single longest, continuous stretch of uninterrupted school days in the entire year. (OK, technically the kids have October 24th off, but teachers have a professional day, so it is continuous for us.)

Now this is not a complaint. I actually like continuity in my classes. It gives me a chance to provide a real foundation in both my AP Computer Science and Astronomy classes. I find that with the many breaks and shortened weeks we have later this semester and into March, that students lose that continuity and that it is more difficult to retain the momentum of these early, continuous weeks. Granted, we all need a break every once in a while, but I for one see the worth of full weeks.

It may be because I am old, but the weeks seem to fly by. I have observed a rhythm to these full weeks.
Monday - No grousing here. I see Mondays as an opportunity to start a great week. In planning for each week, I get excited by the material I see we will cover. I can't wait to dig in.
Tuesday - If I have a let down, it is on Tuesdays. But I try to build on the momentum I started yesterday.
Wednesday - Wow, it is already hump day. More great things to teach.
Thursday - Every other Thursday, Astronomy class meets in Starlab. It is impossible to have a bad day in Starlab.
Friday - constellation quiz and APOD. Have a great weekend.


Now for a word from our sponsor. (TIC)  - There are so many great online resources for astronomy, but one that I have used for years now is the Astronomy Picture of the Day web site. It is hosted by NASA but run by volunteers. Each day they post an image that relates to astronomy (sometimes indirectly.) Under the photo is a paragraph written by a person knowledgeable about the image. There are hot links in the paragraph to additional information. A few images are whimsical but most are serious and positively grand. Occasionally they have video clips. It is a great resource and since they have been doing this continuously since 1996, there are over 6,500 images with commentary. A full college course could come from these, no doubt. If you have never been to that site, take a look.

Now for a secret. If you go to the APOD Archive site and select November 20, 2008 you will see a cool shot of the space shuttle Endeavour during a night time launch from the Kennedy Space Center with the rocket exhaust trail silhouetted by the rising full moon. Neat shot. Then look closely at the bottom portion of the image and you will see...wait for it... yours truly! I am bent over, looking through my camera taking a photo of the identical scene in this picture. I was not aware that the group behind me was taking images that would be posted on APOD and it wasn't until a student noticed it that I became aware of the picture at all.
The only thing better would be to have an image that I took be selected for APOD but this is in some ways cooler. How many people have their likeness (good side not withstanding) on an APOD image?

Thanks for reading this.

Perspective

This week we managed to have our first stargaze, so it was a great week. It never got fully clear; clouds were present the entire time. But we got to see my primary target for the evening, Saturn and its rings, through the telescope. YES!

 One student saw a bright meteor, his first ever. He was stoked. On a different front, I had my final school picture taken. If it's half decent, I may post a copy when I get the print.

But something happened today (Friday) that gives everything an entirely different perspective. For the first time in my teaching career a student had a medical emergency requiring medical services and EMTs. The details are immaterial to this discussion and the student is okay. What I can say is that it brought anew the realization that, as teachers, we seldom have a clue about the things that our students are experiencing in their lives outside of class. As a result we assume, when they enter our classroom, that they are ready to fully attend to the lesson and dig in to the wonderful material we have to present. I'm not saying that we shouldn't. We need to do that because that is our job and we need to do it the very best that we can. But sometimes we need to be reminded that our students are real people with real issues to deal with and problems that resist the compartmentalization we are so accustomed to doing to them.

It also made me more appreciative of what I have: my health, family, a rewarding career. It reminded me of the frailty of life. Although today's incident was not life threatening, let's just say it got my adrenaline pumping. By the end of that class period, when I sat down, my legs started shaking and turned rubbery. But this too shall pass.

I have always tried to let my students know that I am on their side. That I can and am willing to advocate for them, to encourage them and to help them. That I am a fan. I cheer for them to succeed, wish for them the very best. I cannot be all things at all times to them, but in my experience, knowing that there is someone in your corner can make a difference.

I teach because I like the kids. I enjoy the interaction, the banter, the mutual respect that we build. I like high school students because they are the closest of any to being grown adults. They haven't arrived but are closer than they have ever been.

At times like this, with the perspective it brings, seeing the big picture allows us to understand the foundation that under girds what we do every day. For me and most teachers I know, it is not just for a paycheck. It is to make a difference in each of my students.

Now THAT'S the Way to End a Week!

Up until today this had been a good week, even a very good week. I gave the first test of the year in Astronomy. That's always fun. In fact, I occasionally tell my students that it is in my teacher contract, that I must inflict as much emotional stress on them as possible. This is said with tongue firmly planted in cheek. I know that taking a test can be a nerve wracking experience, even stressful. I try to lighten it with a little humor, but I am sure it helps only a little. I still have to give them. Of course, this means I have to correct them and score them. It is part of the job.

Then we had Starlab on Thursday and it is impossible to have a bad week with Starlab in it. I get to play cool music while the room is getting dark and I get a charge out of showing them what they can see in the sky. I'm trying to get my students to pay attention to the sky more. I ask them if they saw the moon that morning. What is the phase going to be in a week? I want them to start looking up. Part of this requires that we have a star gaze, but the evening weather in Florida this time of year makes it nearly impossible to predict when we might have clear skies for viewing. Soon, I hope.

One thing I have noticed this week that I wasn't expecting. People at school (teachers, administrators, staff) have, upon seeing me, mentioned that they are reading my blog and have enjoyed it. (That's good, although I guess I shouldn't expect anyone to say they are reading my blog and hating it.) It has opened more discussions with colleagues than anything else I have done. Period. And I think that's a good thing.

But the best part of the week actually happened after school on Friday. One of my outside interests is birding, looking for and identifying birds, noting their behavior and characteristics. It is great fun. Well, there were reports of a Red-Necked Phalarope seen on Siesta Key Beach at the tidal pool at the north end. It was first reported Wednesday, Sept. 10. I could not go look for it until Friday. Now this little bird is about 8" tip to tail. It summers in the Arctic and winters in Argentina and Chile, so it migrates 10 to 12,000 miles every year. The migration routes are usually in the Atlantic Ocean and it is very unusual to see one in Sarasota, so local birders are excited and coming to see this intrepid traveler. That means that this little guy is resting after flying from northern Canada, feeding and fueling up for the remainder of his journey south.

I went to Siesta Beach straight from school and he was not to be found. I looked for an hour but no luck. I went home and after a while I asked my wife if she would ride along, I was going to go back to the beach. She came along and this time he was there. And very cooperative. I got some good shots. He is not very 'red' in this plumage, but come next spring he will be.This bird is what we call a 'lifer'. It is the first time I have ever seen one of this species. I have seen over 500 different kinds of birds over the years and they are all neat to observe.

And that's the way to end a great week.

Three Weeks Down, Sort of

Last weekend was Labor Day weekend, which means, after just two weeks of school we got a three day weekend! Great! It also means that we returned Tuesday and had a short (four day) week. Again, great! But that means this wasn't quite a full week of school. But I'll take it.

Last post I mentioned a stargaze. Well, the clouds and storms did not cooperate and we have had rain pretty much every evening, so the stargaze had to be cancelled. I was disappointed. Now the Moon is waxing gibbous, so even if the sky cleared, we would not have a star gaze because the moon is too bright. Yes, when the moon is gibbous, it is so bright that the fainter objects in the sky are difficult to see, so I don't fight it. I wait until 3 days or so after full moon at the earliest to plan a stargaze.

The students are starting to get in the groove, in the routine of school. And I must say, again, that I am impressed with them. They are great kids. In astronomy we have started learning the constellations visible from Sarasota, a year long process. After they put that much time and effort into it, it is neat to see how much they can retain years later.

Speaking (writing) about years later, I have enjoyed keeping tabs of former students through facebook. A few of my students say that facebook has been taken over by old people, and I'm OK with that, since... Several former students are in various stages of parenthood: just announced pregnancy, nearing the end of pregnancy, just given birth, have a toddler, you name it. When I graduated from high school and college, sharing that kind of information with people was difficult, unless you had mailing addresses and took the time to send an announcement. Congratulations to all of them. It is fun to see. Keep posting those pics.

I have been trying to keep track and I can't believe how many times I used superlative phrases in Astronomy. Things like, incredible, amazing, ridiculously large, mind-blowing, jaw-dropping. I think the kids may get tired of it, but I NEVER cease to be amazed at the scale of the universe, the size of our solar system and the like, and I have taught this stuff for years.

On a more somber note, this week I found myself walking around campus feeling a little depressed. Well, not depressed really, just becoming aware of the fact that the young students and others that I did not know or recognize, would never have a chance to be in my class. That I would never have a chance to teach them. That realization just struck me. I knew in my head that that was the case, but seeing them brought it home. I don't want to seem a downer, because I really am having a good year, but this is part of the process, I guess.

This post is mostly random thoughts, but the underlying theme for the year remains. This, the final year of my teaching career, is going to be a good one, maybe even great, and is off to a great start.

Starlab Rocks!

This was a great week. There were several things that I could have led with but Starlab won out.

Let's see, I celebrated my birthday this week. I am at the point in life where I relish each and every one that I have. And, of course, it was my final birthday as a classroom teacher. A student who had me last year gave me a present - one of my favorite astronomically named confections: Moon Pies! Thank you Collin, and Erin for designing the bow. My other such favorites are Sky Bar, Star Burst, Milky Way and Mars bar. Never heard of a Sky Bar? They are made by NECCO and were around when I was a kid. They have made a bit of a come back. At least I see them occasionally in Florida stores.

Thursday night was parent Open House, again, my last. In my experience Pine View parents are a great bunch. At least all the ones who took the time to come to Open House were. They are interested in the classes their sons and daughters are taking and it is my job to let them know what can be expected in my class. And I do my best to make them laugh and feel comfortable that I am their kids teacher. All in all I view Open House as a positive experience, although it does make for a long day.

Then there is Starlab. For those who don't know, Starlab is a portable planetarium that I purchased for the school about 11 years ago with a couple of large grants. It has made teaching astronomy even more fun than it was before. We have class in Starlab once every other week, usually on Thursday. It is large and won't fit inside a normal classroom. So for now the best place for it is the auditorium stage. The first time we use it each year, each class period I set it up, explain what it is, take the students inside, have a fire drill (we get out of the dome in 5 seconds), set it back up, get situated, start the music, bring the lights down and show them the night sky. After 5 or 10 minutes, it is time to bring the lights up and pack everything up for the next class. The kids love it (so do I.) There is so much to do in Starlab, but I have learned that the best way is in little doses so it leaves them wanting more. It is just one more way that I try a variety of techniques and methods to helps learn about the heavens.

When I was a planetarium director, choosing music for the programs was a critical part of the production. It is still the same today. I use music to engage the students and draw them into the unique environment that we have in the dome. Over the years students have occasionally made suggestions of pieces of music to use in Starlab. And I have used some of them. But the two students who took this on as a personal project and proposed many pieces that I still use 10 years later are Michael Arbucci and Roger Zare. They helped give my collection a more contemporary component and helped me see the value of using movie sound tracks. Thanks Mike and Roger.

I have scheduled our first stargaze and hope for cooperative weather. If it flies, I will talk (write) about it next time.

Thanks for reading this.

One Down, Thirty-five to Go.

In a play on the name of this blog, I titled this post after the fact that I am finished with the first week of school and have 35 remaining. So the question comes, what did I learn the first week of school? A couple of things, actually. First, I enjoy teaching. Really, I mean it. I look forward to seeing the students, to interacting with them, to learning about them and their interests and goals. I enjoy messing with their minds. These are gifted kids and many of them have never experienced difficulty in understanding new concepts before. In Astronomy we have to deal with 3 dimensional thinking when studying the celestial sphere and coordinate systems and, well, 3-D spatial reasoning is not widely taught these days. It makes most of them have to exercise their "mental muscle," if just a little bit.

Second, I learned that I am part of a terrific department. (I am actually part of 2 departments: science and technology, and they are both terrific, but my new classroom is in the science building, so most of my time is with them.) The science department at my school is made of some of the nicest, most helpful, most considerate teachers I have known in my career. As colleagues they are among the best.

Third, I learned that having only two preps (see my post "So the First Shall Be Last...") makes a difference. I find myself more relaxed between classes, not worrying about getting the switch made from one subject to another. I have a little more time to think, pause, reflect and talk to students. I'm liking this.

Fourth, in teaching 4 sections of the same course, I have found myself asking a given class, "Did I mention a certain topic to you yesterday?" And a couple times I found that I mentioned it in 3 of the 4 sections but not the other, so I had to cover it for them. I have to work out my own way to make sure I cover everything I need in all my sections.

I also learned that my departure at the end of the year can have an effect on others. I am clearing out teaching materials that I have kept thinking I would use them somewhere down the road. I had a few packs of construction paper that I would not need this year (which now means never) and took them to an elementary teacher and gave them to her and told her why. The next day she said she was sad that whole evening knowing I am really retiring this year. Glad for me but sad at the same time. I get that. I'm afraid that mixed emotions will be a common companion this year. Which is one reason why I want to document this year, so I record and remember as much as I can about it.

Thanks for reading this.

Move In Ready

I spent this, the week before students arrive, doing 2 things: attending meetings and preparing my new-to-me classroom for this year's batch of enthusiastic learners. (And I mean that. No sarcasm.) I have nothing to say about attending meetings. It could get ugly.

My first job was to make the new room dark. One entire wall of the classroom is windows. There are no blackout curtains. Let me just say that aluminum foil is now my friend. I can now show images and videos of faint and low contrast celestial objects with some fidelity.

It has been my experience that classroom appearance is done extremely well by most elementary teachers. Creating an inviting yet organized and safe environment for young students, I'm convinced, is in their genes.  Every wall has something that tells the student this is a great classroom. From there the trend, again anecdotally, is for the nature and quality of the decorations and messages to decrease as the grade level increases. I teach some sophomores but mostly junior and seniors (that's 11th and 12th grades.) See where I going here? So one of my decisions was what would I use to grace and adorn the walls of my room? 

There is one bulletin board in my room that was crying for attention. It was covered with a faded and brittle construction paper background and cut-out construction paper letters of a terrific quote attributed to Thomas A. Edison about inspiration and perspiration. I overcame my initial fondness for the quote and decided to make a change. So I tore the letters and background sheets off, realizing too late that the brittle paper tore and left over 200 staples embedded in the board fibers (not cork). I removed them because I had made the decision that whatever was on the board was going to be mine. 

A colleague gave me a roll of white paper used to cover table tops and with 2 swaths I quickly gave the board a stark bright white appearance that I found slightly startling. I had to cover it up. But with what? Now I teach astronomy. I found some cool images from a calendar that I printed for 2014, so there were 5 months for me to mount. (Note to self, school years are different than calendar years.) I found a nice laminated image of a total lunar eclipse time lapse sequence. That's a winner since there are 2 of those eclipses this school year. (The first is in October. I will post about it later.) I decided I would wait to staple anything more for a few days. I am exploring options. The pithy quotes will have to come from the Activ board.

Then I found a package my wife had come across on a shopping trip some time this summer. It was vinyl type stickers of the planets and sun. When I say sticker, these were not your ordinary every day put in a book sticker. The sun was nearly 2 feet in diameter, the earth about 4 inches and Jupiter about 10 inches. Not to scale but still cool. I put the sun at the back of the room and the planets in order on one side of the room on cabinet doors. (My granddaughter helped me with the placement.) That's it for appearance except for a few boxes with stuff laying around looking for a home in the new digs.

Later on I will begin bringing out my collection of educational manipulatives. OK, toys. They will have their own post later.

Monday marks what everybody says is the first day of school. Ha. Teachers have been at it a week (or more) already. Let the count down begin. Remember, this is going to be a great year.

So the Last Shall be First and ...

I  am pretty sure that a recurring theme of this, my final year in the classroom, will be "lasts." The last this and the last that. I guess I already started that by referring to this as my 'final' year. I will do this sparingly, I assure you. But this time, I must. Today was the first day that teachers were back. Students return next Monday, August 18. So-o-o-o this was my last first teacher day. There, it's done.

And now to the news of the day:
After 21 years in the same classroom in the technology building, I moved over the summer to a new-to-me room in the science building. I can safely put this in the column "Things Teachers Dislike Doing." But I'm good with it. The main reason is that, in packing up for this move, I had to toss things that I hadn't used in years and I knew I would not use this year. I'm going to have to do this again at the end of this the final year, but now the job shouldn't be as bad, since I got rid of a lot for this move.

The moves means that a substantial portion of my time this week will be spent in personalizing my new room. It is not a bad room, as classrooms go. But it lacks something....my stuff on display. I have my own posters to adorn the walls, puzzles to lay out for students to manipulate and astronomical equipment to set out. I should have this room up to my standards by a 7:18 next Monday morning (that's 3 minutes before kids arrive and class starts.)

On another front, I find myself with 2 preps this year. Now, for the non-teachers in this vast audience, a prep is the term for a class or subject that you teach and have to prepare a lesson for every day. The more subjects you teach, the more preparation time you usually have. Many teachers teach required courses, which means that a lot of students take it. So those teachers usually have 5 or 6 sections(periods) teaching the same thing (say Algebra 1) 5 or 6 times each day. They have a lot of students but only one prep. Most of my career I have had at least 3 preps and sometimes 4 or even 5 (I would teach a different subject each period.) Never have I have fewer than 3 preps. Until now, my last year. I have one section of Advanced Placement Computer Science and four sections of Astronomy! I would be worried about the monotony of teaching the same thing 4 times a day, except for the fact that it is astronomy. Come on. How good is that.

One final thing for this post: I have determined that this is going to be a good year, maybe even a great year, for me in the classroom. I have thought about this a lot and realize that there is much in my life that is beyond my control. The good, the bad, and the in between - it all happens without seeking for my permission. The one thing I can control is my response to those things, which a direct outgrowth of my attitude. I may not succeed all the time, but I am resolved that my attitude and response will be gracious, caring and encouraging. From time to time I will let you know how I am doing.

Signed,
Astrochap (my WWF handle)

What is this?

I am a teacher. Growing up I did not plan on becoming a teacher, had no desire to be a teacher, but here I am about to start the final year of a long classroom teaching career. Now doing something for 40 years that I did not plan on doing says that I either ended up really enjoying it or was too lazy to try something else. I'm pretty sure it is the former.

As my blog title may indicate, I have taught 40 years and have just this one, about to commence, as my last. And I want to document it. Just a little. So this is an informal diary of my thoughts, recollections and anything else I want to just throw out there.

I'll start with a list of the places I have taught, when and what subjects (memory willing).
1968-71 In Ohio

1971-72 - Virginia

1973-76 - Nashville, TN

1977-87 - Norfolk Christian High School, Norfolk, Va.

1988-present - Pine View School for the Gifted, Sarasota then Osprey, Fl.
6th grade physical science, computer exploration for 4th, 5th and 6th grades, computer programming (3 levels), AP computer science A and AB, geometry, honors physics, AP physics B, physics 2, fundamentals of robotics, and Astronomy.

A couple years I was in grad school full time (I have 2 masters degrees) and one year I worked in industry (didn't like it.)

Along the way I married a wonderful woman, adopted and raised a daughter who married a terrific guy and gave me a grand-daughter! But that is for another blog.